The Glass God (39 page)

The title of the book, in large, reassuringly pastel letters, was
You Have a Secret
.

Rhys followed her gaze.

“It’s… the secret!” Sharon’s voice was hushed and reverent. “The secret to being happy with yourself! I am beautiful, I am wonderful, I have a secret, the secret is…⁠” She sighed, remembering the glories of that time when this simple truth had meant the world to her, there being not much else in her life that meant anything better. “⁠… the secret is me. It’s a self-help book for… anyone. To encourage confidence and teach you that you’re actually wonderful even if you feel shit.”

“I see,” murmured Rhys. He was trying not to look too neurotic as he swivelled his gaze, watching every door, window and inch of wall for the death that must surely lurk behind all this high-gloss paint. “And… is this a clue?”

“I spent months reading this book,” breathed Sharon, reaching towards it. “It was like my Bible, like the thing I went to because I was…⁠”

Her fingers touched the cover and her face changed. Her mouth twisted, shoulders hunched, knees bent; animal-like for a second, her face darkened into a mockery of human form. Her head swerved towards Rhys as she hissed, “Turn out the light!”

Then her hand was swept by its own weight off the surface of the page. At once, the look was gone, her back straightening, her head lifting upright again. She staggered back, dizzy and confused. Rhys caught her by the arm, and yelped with surprise as she grabbed back at him, clinging on for support. Gradually her eyes focused. “Bloody hell,” she whispered. Then, “We gotta find her.”

Rhys could feel the warmth from her skin on his; for a moment her face was so close, he could see every eyelash. He felt her breath against his cheek.

It occurred to him that this was a moment.

He wondered what he should do with it.

Then the moment passed, and so did Sharon, marching for the door, taking the stairs to the top floor two at a time. Rhys followed, between more white walls and under more bright lights pumped up to full wattage, round the corner, to where there was one door – just one – blocking their way. It was large, white, metal, reinforced with heavy rivets forced through great hinges thicker than Rhys’s fist, and very much locked. It put him in mind of a bank vault although perhaps a better description was…

… prison cell?

There were bolts on the outside, pulled wide open, but the door, was locked from the inside. She hesitated, then rapped politely with her knuckles.

“Hi!” she called out. “Really sorry to be breaking into your house like this, but, seriously, this whole plague in the streets thing, it’s gotta take priority here. And I know that’s a bit like saying, in times of trouble all the laws go, and we all know where that leads, and I think we should talk about this, like, afterwards, I mean, like, have a proper sit-down and maybe a consultation and that, but for now, really, I’d just like to talk, okay?”

Silence.

“Look, I know you don’t wanna hear this, but I can just walk straight through this door. I mean, it’s not a big deal, it’s just this thing I do, but I don’t want to violate your privacy or anything like that.”

At length, quietly, muffled through the great wall of metal, “I don’t want to hurt you!”

“That’s great!” exclaimed Sharon. “I don’t want to hurt you either! You don’t wanna hurt me, I don’t wanna hurt you, I really think we could have a dialogue here!”

Silence. Then, “I can’t tell you anything!”

“That’s okay, that’s okay! I think we can work through this together, you know?”

Another silence, even longer than the last. The voice said, “Can you really just walk straight through?”

“Uh, kinda yeah. Unless the door is warded, but I’m not feeling like this door is warded, are you, Rhys?”

“No, Ms Li. Just a perfectly… ordinary… reinforced prison vault door in Fulham.”

“So, yeah, I could totally walk through it. But I don’t want to do it and, like, violate your civil rights or anything.”

“Unless you’re an agent of evil,” suggested Rhys.

“Unless you’re an agent of evil, or merely a kinda adjunct of evil, or like evil’s PA or that, in which case I actually think there’s an argument to be had.”

Again, silence.

“Okay then,” concluded Sharon. “Well, I guess we gotta come through the door now, haven’t we, Rhys?”

“If you say so, Ms Li,” he conceded.

“So stand back, sorry about this…⁠”

She grabbed Rhys by the arm. The druid screwed his face up tight against the discomfort of being pulled bodily through a solid surface, and Sharon marched them both through the locked door.

A moment of coldness, and they stepped into the room beyond.

White padded walls, white padded floor, white padded ceiling; even the inside of the door was padded, but this hadn’t stopped something, something angry and heavy and mad, something with ten razored claws, five on either limb, and ten pinpoint-sharp toenails with deadly curved points, from lacerating a large part of the padding, which now dangled in yellow foamy strips off the concrete-reinforced fabric of the building. The lights in this room, as in all others, were blinding, brilliant white, bright enough to make Rhys’s eyes sting. Crouched against the far wall, head bowed against the glare, was a woman.

She was only a few scant years from being a girl, and certainly the way she hid her head behind her hair, tucked her chin into her chest, curled her shoulders down and inwards, suggested in every way a teenager barely escaped from the hormonal torture of that age. She wore a bright purple T-shirt, denim shorts over black leggings, and a pair of puppy-eared fluffy slippers. Her hair was long, straight and black, her skin almond-brown, and as she cringed back against the wall she covered her body with her crossed arms and wailed, “Go away! Go away, please! Go away!”

Rhys glanced over at Sharon, and saw the shaman recoil in surprise and dismay. It occurred to him that the two women didn’t merely share the same reading material and ethnic origin, but they were not so far apart in age. Sharon said, “Um… hi,” and even for Rhys, who’d seen the shaman in all sorts of socially distressing circumstances, her greeting sounded inadequate.

“Go away, please, you have to leave…⁠” whimpered the girl.

“I’d love to, I mean, seriously, but the thing is…⁠” Sharon edged closer, and squatted down in front of the girl. “The thing is, you kinda look like you’re unhappy and, like, in distress and that, and I was wondering… would you like an intervention?”

Slowly, the girl looked up. “An…⁠?”

“Intervention?” offered Sharon. “It’s this thing, like, where if you get into a really bad way, then people who care about you sorta intervene? I mean, like if you’re locking yourself into bright white barricaded rooms, then things are kinda not perfect, but… have you heard of Magicals Anonymous?”

“W-w-what?”

“Magicals Anonymous? It’s a community support group for people with mystic issues? I’m the boss,” she added with a flare of pride. “Although really I’m just there to facilitate.”

“You’re… here to promote a self-help group?” Even in her cowering state, the woman’s voice couldn’t hide a shrill of incredulity.

“Yeah. Well, no, we’re here to talk about the fate of the city, but, yeah, we’re also here to talk about how you don’t have to be alone, and how there’s, like, people out there with issues like yours and that. So… um… can we help you at all?”

The girl stared into the shaman’s eyes, with the open wonder of a mouse debating if this cat was really sincere about its new vegan regime. Then she bowed her head again, clutched her knees to her chest and whispered, “You should really leave.”

“And we’d love to, but we kinda can’t.”

“You should leave,” she repeated. “Before it comes.”

“It?” Rhys was never slow to pick up on a sense of doom. “Not… a big glass, glowing, angry sort of ‘it’?”

The girl’s eyes flew to him, and there was recognition there, no question. But she half shook her head. “No.
It
. The
it
in
me
.”

“You’re a striga.” Sharon said it so matter-of-factly that both the druid and the girl were taken aback. “Your name is Zhanyi, you’re twenty years old, you go to a tanning booth in Marble Arch as often as you can afford to get your weekly burst of high-intensity light, and when you’re tired, and your spirits are low, and you haven’t been in the sun for a while, and the lights go out, you turn into a striga. Which, by the way, must really hurt, because I don’t know how it feels having every bone in your body rearrange itself to form a hunched carnivorous killing machine, but I’m, like, that’s gotta hurt. But!” Sharon brightened. “I totally respect that you’ve got this place…⁠” She gestured expansively at the padded room. “To, like, keep others safe. I think that’s a real community spirit you’ve got there and actually, I was wondering, did you get a council grant for this? I mean, like, how if you’re disabled you can apply for extra financial support with things like bathroom handles and that, I think it could be so useful to have a panic room for metamorphic transformation – Rhys!” Her head snapped round to face the druid.

“Yes, Ms Li?”

“You gotta remember this for me, cos my brain is, like, dribbling out my nose I’m so tired, but local authority assistance for metamorphic transformation safe rooms – add it to next week’s to-do list!”

“Yes, Ms Li.”

The girl – Zhanyi’s – mouth was hanging open. “You’re… not here to arrest me?” she squeaked.

“Arrest you? God, no!”

“Or… imprison me?”

“We’d never! I mean, you’re handling your condition so well, don’t you think so, Rhys?”

“Yes, Ms Li.”

“The padded rooms, the lotsa lights, the books about being at one with yourself – God no, I’d never imprison you! You know, only a few months ago, I was like, ‘who the fuck am I and what the fuck can I do?’ and now I realise that it’s okay to walk through walls and be the knower of truth, so why the hell should I judge you?”

To Rhys’s surprise, Zhanyi was beginning to uncurl a little, raising her head to look into Sharon’s face. “I thought… you said the Midnight Mayor…⁠”

“Oh, God, that!” Sharon exclaimed. “Seriously, I wouldn’t get the wrong idea from it. I know that the job description has this kinda ‘boom’ reputation…⁠”

“Very ‘boom’,” muttered Rhys.

“⁠… but we’re so much more people-orientated, at Magicals Anonymous. The Individual,” Sharon proclaimed, “Is At The Heart Of What We Do.”

“You’re… not here to hurt me?” whimpered Zhanyi.

“Hell, no!”

“Even… with the blade?”

Sharon hesitated. “Weeellll…⁠” she conceded, “I can’t say that we’re not having issues right now with a whole stolen mega-mystic rusty blade thing. But I’m sure that whatever you’ve gotta tell us, we’ll be happy to listen patiently and hear it from your point of view.”

“You… will?”

“Absolutely.”

And for the first time in what might have been far, far too long, Zhanyi smiled.

Chapter 69

Zhanyi

My name is Zhanyi.

And I’m a striga.

I thought it was a night/day thing – by day I’m me, and by night I’m…
it
. The creature, this thing inside my bones. But it’s not. It’s a light/dark thing. When the lights go out, when the city is silent, when the shadows get too deep… that’s when it happens. I can feel it, inside me, when I run home in the winter and the sun is going down. I glare at strangers and don’t know why, start to scowl at people who smile at me in the street, shove onto the bus, curse under my breath, muttering, muttering all the time, and then people look at me and I get so mad when they look at me, so mad that I want to scream and it’s not me, it’s not me who’s screaming: it’s… it.

That’s how I know it’s coming, I can feel it, feel myself doing it, know it’s stupid, know it’s wrong, but I can’t make it stop. And then it comes, and it is so angry. That’s all it is – anger. It screams and howls and tears things up and I thought it might be a kind of freedom but all it is is anger, pointless, frustrated, endless anger, with nothing that can ever make it stop, make it better. Frustration, I guess. Frustration without cause, without end.

I do try to control it. I’m trying to save enough money to move to an equatorial climate, where the days are long and hot. It’s really hard, living in a northern latitude, especially when the days are short. But getting a job, keeping a job, saving – that’s hard, too. People say you should just do it, just move, take the plunge. But what if something happened on the aeroplane, at the airport, what if it…? And if I move I need to go somewhere safe, somewhere I can control it, if it emerges, keep it safe, and so I…

… it’s hard.

And I go to the tanning booth, because I learnt that sometimes I can sorta… get a reserve of energy, you know? Like I can store up on light and that might make it harder for
it
to come out, keep it buried deeper inside me? And I practise breathing exercises, and try to cook nice things and learn to knit, but nothing really…

I don’t know what to do.

Don’t know who to trust.

Don’t know how to make it stop.

Don’t want to… hurt anyone else. Don’t want to. Can’t make it stop.

Then one day I’m at the spa, and this woman – Brid – she comes up to me and says she’s been watching me a while, thinks I look really sad, and she’s really nice, and most people when they find out the truth, they just freak out, like they don’t dare be in the same room as me – and I don’t blame them – but Brid, she wasn’t like that. You’re special, she told me. Someone does love you. You don’t have to be alone. And I thought that was really nice, and she invited me to meet some of her friends, and they were really kind, everyone was really kind and they were having these… services, but they were always at night, so I couldn’t attend, but Brid said, that’s okay, don’t worry about it, we’ll come to you during the day, bring you cake, and they did, they were really good about it! Then one day Brid calls and says she needs me to do her a favour, and it’s in daylight hours so that’s okay, and she gives me this address in Chelsea and I go down there and there’s… there’s these sisters. Three sisters. And they’re…